


the heaviest of burdens

by thekissofbees



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Codependency, Drug Addiction, Dysfunctional Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:44:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekissofbees/pseuds/thekissofbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kent sleeps with his phone resting on his pillow, the volume cranked up as high as it will go and the vibrate on. He’s stretched the cord of the charger out so that it will reach his bed, and the coating of the wire is beginning to fray and peel off at the top. </p>
<p>(Or: Kent waits for Jack to call.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the heaviest of burdens

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become."

_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ , Milan Kundera

 

Kent sleeps with his phone resting on his pillow, the volume cranked up as high as it will go and the vibrate on. He’s stretched the cord of the charger out so that it will reach his bed, and the coating of the wire is beginning to fray and peel off at the top.

Sometimes, during the night, Kent will wake up with a jerk; feeling like the ground has been pulled out from underneath him. He’ll turn on his phone with shaky hands, be momentarily blinded by the brightness of the screen, and then check to see if he’s somehow missed a message. If there’s no message, that doesn’t mean he’s safe, but it does mean that he can turn off the phone and stare at the ceiling until he falls asleep again or morning comes. Or until the phone rings.

If there’s no call all night long (and it’s only rung once, for all the years that Kent has spent doing this), that means that either everything is okay or that everything is very very bad. Either Jack is fine, or he’s so far gone that he can’t even call Kent. Or maybe he’s called someone else. Someone else who doesn’t know how to take care of Jack the way Kent does, someone else who doesn’t know how to talk Jack away from the edge the way Kent does, someone else who hasn’t held all of Jack’s broken pieces in his hands and loved him anyway.

The first time Kent had woken up in their hotel room to see Jack sitting on the bathroom floor with his head pressed against the rim of the toilet, he had been terrified. Jack’s huge, powerful body curled up small on the floor, the way his hands couldn’t seem to stop shaking—Kent had no fucking idea what he was supposed to do. Had no idea how to _help_.

Jack had told him to go away, his voice a broken, numb thing, but Kent had stayed anyway.

See, someone else might not do that. Someone else might not know that when Jack says to go away he really means the opposite.

Kent had stayed. Kent always fucking stayed.

He had crouched down and put a hesitant hand on Jack’s back, and it was like something had been cut loose in Jack. He had started sobbing; those big hacking sobs that rip through your body and leave you choking and coughing on air. Kent had been afraid that he had done something wrong, that by touching Jack he had ruined everything.

He took his hand off Jack’s back, took a step back, and Jack began stammering out apology after apology, snot dripping down his face and his eyes red.

Kent had kissed him, for lack of anything else to do, and then coached him through sticking a finger down his throat so he would throw up. 

Afterwards, Kent had sponged off Jack’s clammy skin with a warm washcloth, and then he had helped Jack brush his teeth and change clothes. He had brought Jack back to his bed, had spooned around him, and had stayed up all night while Jack slept. 

Kent was no idiot, he had kept an eye on Jack’s pulse and breathing, and he had read enough WebMD articles that night to probably qualify him for medical practice if he ever got too old to play hockey.

In the morning, Jack had asked him not to tell anybody, with those big violet eyes of his, and Kent didn’t tell anybody. Kent didn’t ask any questions.

He didn’t ask if it was an accident.

Kent was _good_ at taking care of Jack. Kent got them through Major Juniors. Kent got Jack through a crap-ton of parties and mandatory press events and panic attacks and hangovers. Jack needed him. Jack would have pussied out in their first year or some shit like that without Kent. He would have cried during an interview, or mixed a downer and vodka, or cut his wrists in the bathtub. 

No one else could have gotten Jack through that.

Jack was his captain—his best friend—his whole world. Kent had given everything he had to Jack, and he would do it again. Jack never had to ask, and Kent would give it to him anyway.

Kent had known that the benzos were a problem. Hell, of course he had known. Kent had Poison Control on speed dial, okay. But then he also had known what Jack was like without the meds, and Jack without the meds was a complete fucking disaster. Jack without meds was incapable of playing hockey, and Jack without hockey wasn’t Jack. Jack without meds had meltdowns in public and was so nervous before games that he would pass out. The meds were a compromise, same as anything else.

And after all, the drugs were in fact prescribed. It wasn’t like Jack was shooting up heroin in their hotel room or anything. He was taking prescription medication in a manner that occasionally dipped into the unhealthy, but there were very few people in the world of professional hockey who didn’t occasionally abuse drugs a little bit. When Kent had spelled it out in his head like that, it had almost made sense.

Kent had loved it when they were on road. When they were on the road, Jack was never out of Kent’s sight. There was no possibility of anything happening to Jack without Kent being there, no possibility that Jack would be left alone with some stranger to comfort him through a panic attack or overdose.

When they were with the team, they would sit together, too close to be casual, their hips pressed against each other and their arms touching. When they were alone, they would lie together on the bed, tangle up their limbs and try to have every inch of their skin touching each other’s. There was this sense that if they only just get close enough, they would become one person. Kent could sink into Jack, nestle into his chest and soothe away everything that made him anxious and sad.

Sometimes Kent would lie on top of Jack, pin him down with all of his weight. Jack would start out stiff, all hard-coiled muscle and tension. Kent would mouth at his collarbone, at the place where his neck joined his shoulder, at the spot on the side of Jack’s jaw that made him just _moan_.

They would breathe into each other’s mouths, these long kisses that made Kent’s lips buzz and swell. He could feel Jack relax underneath him, feel his body loosen and unwind. Sometimes Kent would kiss his way down Jack’s body, would take his cock in his mouth and watch Jack fall apart. Other nights, Kent would turn Jack over, and fuck him hard until Jack became so limp and soft that Kent wanted to cry.

On the nights when Jack and Kent weren’t together, Kent had kept his phone on.

Kent still keeps his phone on, even now. Even when he’s in Las Vegas and Jack is in Montreal. Even when he’s in Las Vegas and Jack is in Massachusetts. Even when he’s on a road trip with the Aces. Especially when he’s on a road trip with the Aces.

Sometimes Kent just wishes the phone would ring, even if that makes him a bad person.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at thekissofbees, come say hi!


End file.
